USA TODAY Review

De Rosnay's 'Secret Kept' is juicy, but it's no 'Sarah's Key'

It was never going to be easy for Tatiana de Rosnay to follow her best seller Sarah's Key , a heart-wrenching novel about a dark chapter in France's history the little-known Vel' d'Hiv roundup of Jews in 1942.

A Secret Kept uses a similar formula, shifting between present and past, as a family again grapples with a difficult secret.

Less is at stake this time, because this novel's mysteries do not revolve around the horrors of the Holocaust. Which makes A Secret Kept an easier read, if a less powerful one.

The main players are Antoine Rey, freshly and unhappily divorced, and his younger sister, Melanie.

To celebrate Melanie's 40th birthday, Antoine takes her to Noirmoutier Island, where they haven't been since childhood and their mother's death more than 30 years ago.

The trip triggers unsettling memories and leads Melanie to lose control of the car as they return to Paris.

De Rosnay keeps us guessing by interspersing her narrative with tender letters their mother once wrote to a mystery lover.

Secret has its pleasures; de Rosnay (whose literary heroine is Daphne du Maurier) knows how to keep you hooked, and it's entertaining to watch her sympathetic French characters grapple with their Gallic angst. But this novel is a mere bonbon compared with Sarah 's rich feast.